Courier for the day

With no sponsorship licence in sight for her this week, the girl's company suggested she become self employed and work for them freelance from Australia. It wasn't a great solution, but the girl needed the income, and so I got in touch with some people from her office about taking them her work laptop. The idea was that they could then get it sent to Australia by courier.

And so it was on a grey and rainy London afternoon I set off in my best suit, with my portfolio and the girl's laptop, to an appointment I had in the city.

I was already tight for time, the meeting had been set up at the last minute and I'd had time only to get home and change my clothes in a Superman-style whirlwind to catch a train. A train that as I waited at the station was getting further delayed every few minutes. Periodically, freight trains would come storming straight through the station, but my train was delayed without explanation -- and I had to get to the gleaming towers of Docklands.

While I was waiting I got a text from the girl asking me very nicely to call her. I didn't have our spare mobile with the cheap overseas calls, but something about the message told me it was important. The girl got to the point quickly -- it might not be necessary for me to take the laptop to her work after all, since their licence had finally arrived.

This means that after advertising her job for a couple of weeks, the girl will be able to apply for her visa and get all her biometric data recorded, as well as a GPS tracking chip embedded under her skin, as I am sure is now standard procedure in a surveillance society such as ours.

Thanks to the joys of internet access on my phone I was able to buy a little time before my appointment so I didn't turn up breathless and rushed, so that went well. I wasn't expected at the girl's offices any particular time, and I think I shared the lift with her Swiss colleague. I was curious to meet some of the people I had heard so much about, and the few I had emailed, but I got no further than the receptionist. I handed over the laptop, and was off again.

Soon now, the girl will be returning, and I am already mentally making plans for fun tings to do -- I won't talk about any of my ideas here and now, but if there was one thing my visit Down Under showed me it is that surely nowhere in England is beyond reasonable driving distance.